Minnesota 2013-2014 Poetry Out Loud Champions

Faiza Mohamed Abubakar

Faiza Mohamed Abubakar of Ubah Medical Academy (Hopkins) was named the winner of the 2014 Poetry Out Loud Minnesota competition with her recitation of To the Desert, by Benjamin Alire Saenz, I'm Offering You This Poem, by Jimmy Santiago Baca, and Sweetness, by Stephen Dunn.

In April of 2014, Abubakar will represent Minnesota at the national finals in Washington, DC. She will be competing with champions from all fifty states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico.

Other Minnesota Champions

Runner-up: Laurel Pietrzak—Big Lake High School, Big Lake

3rd Place: Lillian Simmons—Century High School, Rochester

4th Place: Elexus Hall—PYC Arts and Tech High School, Minneapolis

5th Place: David Kamper—Marshall High School, Duluth

6th Place: Abdirahman Abdi—Woodbury High School, Woodbury

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Poetry Out Loud

Poetry Out Loud, the National Endowment for the Arts, Minnesota State Arts Board, and the Poetry Foundation Poetry Out Loud is a program that brings students across the country together through poetry, learning, and engagement.

The National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation cosponsor the program and contest. In local settings, schools host their own contests. Winners move on to regional and state contests, and the winners from each state travel with a guardian to Washington, DC, for the national event.

Minnesota's Poetry Out Loud state-wide recitation competition is made possible in part by dollars awarded from the Minnesota State Arts Board, through an appropriation form the Minnesota State Legislature and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support for metro public library participation is funded with money from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund through an appropriation to MELSA.